Across Europe Fall 04

So we arrived in Rome last night and found our hostel with no problem. We
had our own room which was nice, and free breakfast and cheap beer and free
pizza for dinner. So we were loving this hostel, then this morning we went
down to check if we could keep the double or if we had to move to a dorm and
they said we had to leave! They said that you have to reserve online, so
even though two DIFFERENT guys last night said that there would be no
problem and had our names down (only question was if we could keep the
double or not) they kicked us out this morning, guess they overbooked. But
the good thing is that they helped us find a new place, but only for
tonight, they are full tommorrow night. but this new place helped us find a
room for tommorrow night, so three days in Rome, three different hostels!
what a pain!

So after we got that whole room thing sorted out this morning we set out -
later than expected - to the colosseum. I wanted to get there early to beat
the line, but we didnt so we had to wait in line for like 45 min, but then
we got in a tour and got out of line, but we had to wait another hour for
the tour to start. It was good that we got the tour though. It was given by
an archeologist and was very interesting, and becuase it was teh official
tour it was even cheaper than the audio guide, which I still dont understand
but hey, it worked for us. It was amazing! the Colloseum is huge and so
impressive even though it is only a shadow of its former self. The tour
guide did a really good job of helping us picture how it used to be with the
marble and frescoes.

Then we had lunch before heading to Palatine Hill and the Roman forum. The
Roman forum was cool but not nearly as impressive as the Colosseum. We took
a self guided tour from one of our guidebooks and it told us a lot, but the
ruins were not in as good of condition as the colloseum so it wasnt as easy
to picture their former glory.

Then we headed to the Mamertime Prison, an old cistern converted to a prison
that once held Sts Peter and Paul. It was basically just an old stone well
that you could go in and try to picture what it would have been like to be a
prisoner there. (cold and dreary)

Then we headed up Capitol hill. Capitol hill has a square that was designed
by Michelangelo. It was really gorgeous. He thought of everything to make
the square appear the most impressive from the direction that most people
would approach it. A grand staircase leads up flanked by two huge statues.
In the center of the square stands a statue of marcus aurelieus surounded by
three magnificent buildings.

We then headed down past the statue of Immanuel somebody, the first king of
unified Italy. It is an immense white marble building occupying a great
location at the end of 'the main drag' through the center of italy. It also
holds the tomb of the unknown soldier. Some demonstration was going on when
we were there so that was interesting lots of police and people with huge
italy flags.

We then headed over to the Pantheon. Almost as impressive as the Colloseum,
it is a huge domed building, which no one is really sure still how it was
created so large and still standing from so many years ago.

Finally we wandered over to the Trevi fountain which really didnt live up to
the hype. Yeah it was a really gorgeous fountain, but the thousands of
tourists hanging around kind of detracted from that. It was seriously the
most crowded place we had been (and the pantheon was completely filled with
people). Like I said it was pretty, but just not 'all that'.

Tommorrow we are going to get up early, change hotels and head to the
vatican. The sistine chapel closes early during the off season so you need
to get there really early to even get in, not to mention wait in a long
line.

Meg and Seth